‘Albania: €1’ or the story of ‘big policies, small outcomes’: how Albania constructs and engages its diaspora

Since the fall of the communist regime in the early 1990s, Albania has experienced one of the most significant emigrations in the world as a share of its population. By 2010 almost half of its resident population was estimated to be living abroad – primarily in neighbouring Greece and Italy, but also in the UK and North America. This chapter discusses the emergence and establishment of the Albanian diaspora, its temporal and geographical diversity, and not least its involvement with Albania itself. Albania’s policymaking and key institutions are considered, with a focus on matters of citizenship; voting rights; the debate on migration and development; and not least the complex ways in which kin-state minority policies – related to ethnic Albanians living in Kosovo, Montenegro, southern Serbia, Macedonia and Greece – are interwoven with Albania’s emigration policies

Psychosocial job characteristics and psychological distress / well-being: The mediating role of personal goal facilitation

OBJECTIVE\nThis study examined the mediating role of personal goal facilitation through work (PGFW), defined as perceptions of the extent to which one's job facilitates the attainment of one's personal goals, in the association between psychosocial job characteristics and psychological distress and job-related well-being.\nMATERIAL AND METHODS\nQuestionnaire data from 217 nurses (84% female, with a mean age of 42.7 years, SD=7.2) were analyzed. Participants completed the following measures: the Leiden Quality of Work Questionnaire for Nurses, Workplace Goal Facilitation Inventory, Maslach Burnout Inventory-Human Services Survey, and Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (short version). A cross-sectional study design was applied. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted.\nRESULTS\nThe results indicated that unfavorable psychosocial job characteristics (high demands, low control, and low social support) were associated with lower PGFW. Furthermore, personal goal facilitation through work explained significant additional variance (from 2 to 11%) in psychological distress (somatic complaints and emotional exhaustion) and job-related well-being (personal accomplishment, job satisfaction, and work engagement), controlling for demographic indicators and psychosocial job characteristics. Finally, the results provided support for the mediating effects of PGFW between all psychosocial job characteristics and all outcomes, except in the case of depersonalization.\nCONCLUSIONS\nThis study suggests that hindered personal goal facilitation may be a mechanism through which psychosocial job characteristics have a negative impact on employees' well-being.(J Occup Health 2016; 58: 36-46).FSW - Self-regulation models for health behavior and psychopathology - ou

High-Skilled Migration in Times of Global Economic Crisis

We introduce two pioneering databases in order to analyze the implications of the Global Economic Crisis on international migration. The first details inflows of migrant workers of 185 nationalities to 10 OECD destinations, disaggregated by skill level (highly skilled and otherwise), between 2000 and 2012. The second comprises immigration policies implemented by 19 OECD countries between 2000 and 2012. We distinguish between six skill-selective admission policies, six post-entry policy instruments and three bilateral agreements. Subsequently we present preliminary analysis of these data against the backdrop of the Global Economic Crisis. The Global Economic Crisis negatively affected annual inflows of both highly and other skilled migrants between 2007 and 2009, although they resumed their upward trend thereafter. The starkest trends in policy terms include: the emergence and rapid diffusion of student job seeker visas, the relative stability in the prevalence of skill selective policies in the wake of the Global Economic Crisis, a greater use of financial incentives to attract high-skilled workers and increased employer transferability for migrants at destination